Call for papers: Spirits, Elementals, Ghosts, Vampires, Fairies, and Other Occult Beings in Modern Theosophy and Related Esoteric Currents

International Theosophical History Conference.

From the late nineteenth century onward, the Theosophical Society and related occult milieus reimagined beings drawn from ancient traditions, séance culture, folklore, and occult revivalism and integrated them into new expanded esoteric worldviews and practices connected to spiritual evolution, subtle bodies and multiple planes of nature.

This call for papers seeks historically grounded papers that analyse how such beings were defined, understood, classified and ranked in esoteric cosmology or how they were operationalised as relational or explanatory agents in spiritual practice (e.g., "obsession," inspiration, “astral” influence). 

See the full call here (PDF).

Keynote speaker: Associate Professor Manon Hedenborg White, Malmö University, President of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE).

 

  • Conference Chairs: Jenny Butler, PhD and Tim Rudbøg, PhD.
  • Jenny Butler, PhD, is a Lecturer in the Study of Religions at University College Cork and President of The Irish Society for the Academic Study of Religions (ISASR).
  • Prof Tim Rudbøg, PhD, Associate professor, Study of Religion, chair and director of the Copenhagen Centre for the Study of Theosophy and Esotericism, University of Copenhagen.
  • Prof. James Santucci, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at California State University, Fullerton.
  • Olivia Cejvan, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher at Malmö University, Sweden.
  • Bjarke Stanley Nielsen, PhD, Denmark.
  • Ethan Doyle White, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
  • Erica Georgiades, MRes Religious Experience, University of Wales Trinity Saint David.

 

 

Possible paper topics within this CFP theme:

  • Taxonomies of the dead: ghosts, “shells,” and post-mortem states in theosophical afterlife geographies
  • “Elementals” and nature spirits: fairy-lore as comparative esoteric classification
  • Vampires, “astral feeding,” and moral discourse around desire, addiction, and exploitation
  • Thought-forms and “artificial” entities: imagination, affect, and quasi-material psychology
  • Clairvoyance as method: authority, verification, and pedagogy in esoteric knowledge-making
  • Boundary-work with spiritualism and psychical research: séance risks, obsession, and expertise claims
  • Translation and circulation: how terms (astral, deva, kama-loka, etc.) reorganised vernacular beings
  • Media and aesthetics: illustration, colour theory, music, and architecture as “evidence” of unseen beings
  • Colonial and global entanglements: “comparative religion” approaches to spirits across empires and cultures
  • Reception history: how these creature-categories migrate into twentieth-century occult, Pagan and New Age repertoires, including occulture
  • Visualising the unseen: diagrams, clairvoyant illustration, and the visual epistemology of occult beings

To be considered as a presenter in the Conference, please submit an abstract of approx. 300 words with a 50-word biography to Erica Georgiades, via email.

All proposals will be evaluated by the conference committee.

Presentation time is max 20 minutes.

Deadline for submission of paper proposals: 20 June 2026

Notification of acceptance: 30 June 2026

All submissions should be in PDF format and must include a short biographical note in the same document.

Theosophical History Conference & The Theosophical History Journal

The purposes of holding the International Theosophical History Conferences are practical in nature: to maintain interest in the subject, to assess the status of research in the area, and finally to provide material for publication within the Theosophical History journal. If the presenter wishes to publish in the journal, we advise that the style of the final text and endnotes conform to Chicago Style and that a digital submission be sent for review to the editor (Tim Rudbøg) in Word format no later than two months following the Conference.

 

 

Students: £50 per day (includes coffee breaks and buffet lunch)

Non-students: £75 per day (includes coffee breaks and buffet lunch)